Stories Before Sept 2016

KTRK (Channel 13) led the English-language stations in newscast time slots for households and at 10 p.m. for adults 25-54, and Spanish-language behemoth KXLN (Channel 45) beat them all.

If numbers make your eyes blur, you can stop now. What you’ve read is the gist of what’s to come.

According to a release from the Univision station, Channel 45 just edged Channel 13 in adults 25-54 for its late newscast with a 3.7 rating in the demo to 3.6 for Channel 13. Both were light years ahead of the competition: KHOU (Channel 11) at 2.1, KPRC (Channel 2) at 1.8 and KRIV (Channel 26) at 1.7. Channel 45’s lead among adults 18-49 was 3.3 to 2.5 for Channel 13, with 11 and 2 tied at 1.5 and 26 at 1.4.

Channel 45 generally skews young, so Univision also touts its lead among adults 18-34. For the 10 p.m. or 9 p.m. newscasts, its 3.0 rating leads 13 and 26 at 1.2, 11 at 0.9 and 2 at 0.7.

Univision’s early news is at 5 p.m., so its demo figures compare that broadcast rather than the traditional 6 p.m. English-language newscasts. But it wins that race, too, with a 2.1 rating among adults 25-54 to 1.4 for 13, 1.2 for Channel 2, 1.0 for Channel 11 and 0.7 for Channel 26. The pecking order is more or less the same among adults 18-49, In adults 18-34, Channels 11 and 26 are tied for second, with Channel 13 in fourth.

As for prime time, Channel 45 led all the English-language stations in adults 25-54, 18-49 and 18-34. In adults 25-54, Channel 13 was second with a 2.7 rating to Channel 45’s 4.1, followed by Channel 26 at 2.5, Channel 11 at 2.4 and Channel 2 at 1.9. Channel 26 was second in 18-49 at 2.0 to Channel 45’s 4.3, with 13 and 11 tied for third at 1.8 and Channel 2 at 1.4. Amazingly, Channel 45’s 4.5 prime time rating among adults 18-34 beat 26, 13 and 11 combined; toss in Channel 2, and the English stations combined for a 4.8 rating in that demo. Pretty astonishing.

The demos are used for advertising sales, which means they tend to overshadow the household numbers to which we’ve become accustomed to citing over the years. Nonetheless, I still like to cite households to give the broadest possible look at the market. Also, I’m old; I long ago left the adults 25-54 demo, so I feel duty-bound to cite the one set of data that includes geezers.